Thor-Agena Launch Vehicle Family
Thor-Agena was a family of expendable launch vehicles that paired Douglas Thor-derived first stages with Lockheed Agena upper stages. Beginning with Discoverer 1 in 1959, successive short-tank, thrust-augmented, and long-tank configurations supported reconnaissance, meteorology, geophysics, navigation, and geodesy missions from the Western Test Range. The lineage progressed from Agena A through restartable Agena B and standardized Agena D upper stages.
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Identity
- Aliases
- Thor AgenaThor/Agena
- Family Name
- Thor-Agena
- Full Name
- Thor-Agena Launch Vehicle Family
- Status
- retired
- Type
- rocket
Details
- Description
- Thor-Agena was a family of expendable launch vehicles that paired Douglas Thor-derived first stages with Lockheed Agena upper stages. Beginning with Discoverer 1 in 1959, successive short-tank, thrust-augmented, and long-tank configurations supported reconnaissance, meteorology, geophysics, navigation, and geodesy missions from the Western Test Range. The lineage progressed from Agena A through restartable Agena B and standardized Agena D upper stages.
- First Flight Year
- 1,959
- Last Flight Year
- 1,972
- Operator
- Parent Vehicle Family
- Rocket Specs
- Reusability
- expendable
Links
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- Creation Time
- July 13, 2026 at 13:21:07 UTC
- Updated Time
- July 19, 2026 at 09:59:29 UTC
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Other
- Search Name
- Thor-Agena Launch Vehicle Family Thor Agena Thor/Agena